I came to the UK as part of my business administration studies in 2000 and expected to go home to Hong Kong after my graduation ceremony, but I wanted some experience, so I was working part-time as a bookkeeper in a knitwear factory. 

When I met my husband here, I decided to stay in the UK and get an accountancy qualification. I wanted to make sure that I would have a good career in accountancy and I wanted a globally-recognised qualification in case I went back to Hong Kong so ACCA was the obvious choice.

I moved to another firm and started putting myself through ACCA. I climbed up the ladder quite quickly after starting my ACCA studies – in the space of a year I went from being in finance administration to being a purchase ledger clerk and then a management accountant. I was so proud when I passed my final exam, and in the same year I was promoted to finance manager looking after a £6m division.

I’m quite career driven and I’m always challenging myself to do different roles. I’ve have done every position in a finance department in industry apart from credit control – that’s not a skillset I have so I managed a credit control team but have never been the one physically making calls. My final role in industry was as the group commercial accountant and head of reporting of a £1.2bn national firm in a global setting. 

I really enjoyed my industry roles, and it never crossed my mind to be in practice. I loved knowing every single element of a business, but when I had my daughter, I wanted flexibility and practice was a better fit. I was volunteering with the NCT and one of the mum’s had a franchise and needed help with bookkeeping. That started me thinking about setting up in practice, so I researched ACCA’s requirements and realised I needed a practising certificate if I was going to offer all accountancy services.

However, if you have suitable experience then it may be possible. For example, I would go to Board meetings with our biggest customers in my final role – my sales team liked to have me there - so I was able to meet the requirement about how you serve your clients when applying for the practising certificate. 

I called my old boss and even though it had been five years since I’d worked for him, and he’d left the company in the meantime, he was willing to support my application for a practising certificate. He was CIMA so he wasn’t familiar with ACCA’s processes but I will forever be grateful to him for being so determined to help me get through the process. 

It had never crossed my mind – being in industry - that I would have to apply for a practising certificate if I wanted to be in practice. I never became aware whilst on my student journey that ACCA would require me to hold a practising certificate if I wanted to practice. It was never mentioned in any of the communications from ACCA and I think students should be told earlier that this need can arise.

This topic does come up in online student forums – some students want to offer accountancy services and others will point out that you cannot do that as a student. Or qualified members in industry want to offer a side hustle like self-assessment tax returns but they cannot do that without a practising certificate.

Many find the application form daunting – it isn’t that they don’t have the experience, but they don’t know how to fill it in. The other issue is getting your manager to support your application. Some in practice feel they cannot ask their manager to fill in the form because the manager would see it as them wanting to leave. Some managers point blank refuse to sign off on the experience. I was so lucky with my ex-boss.

There’s also the perception that you have to be with the same employer for 36 months – although if your manager is willing then you can get your experience signed off and banked every six months as you go along. But if you have to do it retrospectively then it’s hard if you have to find multiple former managers. 

My initial application was rejected with a request for further information as it was felt that my experience was not sufficient. I was devastated – I was so proud to be an ACCA member and I didn’t want to have to de-register and be unable to call myself a chartered certified accountant anymore. The other option was to go back to full time work in a practice for a few years, but I couldn’t because of my child.

Fortunately, I came across fellow ACCA member Zoe Whitman who runs a bookkeepers club and she encouraged me to re-apply for a certificate. At the same time, the Authorisation Officer at ACCA followed up my original application and asked if I wanted to re-apply. I thought the door had been closed but it turned out ACCA just needed more detailed information. 

The form asks for 300 words for each item, but what they’re looking for is a snapshot of the day – for example how I was in a Board meeting and how I presented a yearly budget, interacted with the Board, and then made amendments to the budget after the meeting – so you’ll use more than 300 words. 

You probably need to be at finance manager level to be able to demonstrate the experience you need to get a practising certificate, but you don’t need to be a finance director!

My former boss and I re-wrote the application with a lot of detail, and on my second attempt, I got my practising certificate! 

You can see samples of Lilian’s successful application and the accompanying confirmation from her principal in the useful links section below.

I really want to get the message out that if I can do it then you can do it too. Don’t be discouraged by social media and rumours that you cannot get a practising certificate if you have an industry background – you should see if you can meet the criteria and then apply. 

I had tremendous help from my mentor Tony Down FCCA of Langstone Advisory when I was opening my practice. I regularly have chats with him and he helps me to understand aspects that are new to me because my background was in industry. It’s a free program and I’m so grateful that ACCA has it.

Top tip: You can apply for a practising certificate and be approved but you won’t have to take it up straight away. You can defer taking it up until you need it. Don’t wait until you need a practising certificate before you apply for one!